1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for installing an application.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a method is known in relation to authorized use of a license or protection of internal information, or the like in which persons other than an authorized user cannot use an application installed on a process execution apparatus such as an image forming apparatus, or the like, or an information processing apparatus such as a computer, or the like. In this regard, a method and an information processing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-301773 prevents unauthorized use of an application by encrypting the application program itself, and permission for decrypting is only granted to authorized software development personnel.
However, the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-301773 does not consider a method adapted in relation to a change to the encryption algorithm. Generally, when a user changes an encryption algorithm, it is necessary to change both the encrypted application itself and the decryption application that receives and decrypts the encrypted application. Therefore, for example, when software development personnel change an encryption algorithm, all related components of the system must be reconfigured when applications that use the encryption algorithm are distributed on storage media such as optical disks. Furthermore, a determination must be made in relation to which application that has used the encryption algorithm must be distributed depending on the encryption key in a decryption application used by the user. In this context, although development personnel have proposed updating of the decryption application to coincide with an application to be distributed, this configuration is associated with difficulties due to the need to also update firmware used in the image forming apparatus, or the like. In addition, a method of automatic determination of an application to be distributed that coincides with the version of the firmware at the time of shipping from the factory has been proposed. However, automatic determination is difficult since the version of the firmware may be updated after market entry.